1. Field of the Invention
This invention deals with the on-line shopping environment and replenishment list generation. In particular, the invention relates to a method to enable consumer replenishment shopping by periodicity.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is increasingly being exploited as a means to reach consumers directly. For example, purchasing consumable items from an electronic grocery or retail outlet is a business beginning to take form on the Internet. However, current practice has identified several contributing factors acting as barriers to wide acceptance of this new marketing channel. First, shopping in a grocery store will occur one or more times a week. Second, the typical inventory is on the order of tens of thousands of products, many of which are sold in several different sizes. Third, consumers selecting to use such a service are doing so in the hope of saving time.
However, shopping for a hundred or so items out of an inventory of thousands of items in an electronic shopping service is thus far a very tedious task for consumers. This task becomes worse when the service is utilized several times a month. Such a service can relate to many different situations too numerous to mention. A good example at the retail level is replenishing consumable and perishable items such as groceries from a supermarket.
There is a need to simplify many aspects of electronic shopping. A shopper visiting an e-commerce site may use an application to create, organize and submit orders to that site. Electronic shopping lists or e-lists are created by the user and stored for later retrieval by the shopper for modification and/or reuse. The electronic shopping lists may include selections reflecting various replenishment scenarios: daily, weekly, monthly, holidays and equivalent. When the e-lists contain items having a limited shelf life, or perishable items such as those offered by a grocer, a shopper may choose to create a replenishment scenario based on items that have exceeded their “use” by date. However, this method may prove to be time consuming. Therefore, there is a pressing need to find a method or tool, which enables consumers to save significant amounts of time by utilizing electronic shopping and replenishing their e-lists.
Another problem that may occur is that consumers may have a need to replenish items other than those having reached an “expiration date.” For example, many consumable items have a variable limited “useful life”, such as motor oil, and ballpoint pens. Variability is introduced by the consumer's personal habit. Based on this problem, there is a pressing need to solve replenishment for consumers by “useful life.” Current technology generally uses the results of the data mining process to notify users of these types of situations via e-mail or telemarketing (or a combination). However, it would be helpful for consumers to have a more convenient way of replenishing their shopping list.
Still, another problem is that consumers may have a need to replenish items other than those having reached an “expiration date” and/or “useful life.” Many items may need “to be replenished more frequently than by “expiration date” and/or “useful life.” For example, a consumer may use one quart of milk a week. This periodicity could be sooner than either an “expiration date” and/or “useful life” of an item. Accordingly, a need exists for consumers to have another way of replenishing their shopping lists in addition to by “expiration date” and/or by “useful life.”